The invention relates to a metallurgical vessel, particularly a steel manufacturing furnace or converter. Such a vessel is pivotally supported by a pair of pivot pins. The pivot pins are supported in bearings for facilitating rotational movement necessary for tapping or pouring. According to the invention, at least one of the pivot pins is hollow and carries conduits which either function as material providing inlets or, if desired, material drains to or from the vessel, respectively. The type of materials supplied to or eliminated from the furnace can be liquid coolants and/or other liquid, gaseous or solids and/or powdered metallurgical processing materials.
A tilting furnace or vessel having hollow pivot pins provides a material passageway through the pivot pin support bearings. Since such a metallurgical vessel rotates about the pins while tilting for tapping purposes, an additional length of flexible tubing, i.e., slack, if flexible pressure hose lines are used, is required. One of the two hollow pivot pins serves to supply a liquid useful in the steelmaking process such as, for example, cooling water, and the other hollow pivot pin serves as a drain for the water which is partially heated by the heat of the furnace. The supplied and drained water simultaneously serves to cool the pivot pin support bearings, which bearings usually contain heat-sensitive, built-in roller bearings.
As used herein, all materials desirable or necessary for a steel making process carried out in a metallurgical vessel are designated "manufacturing components". Included within the category of manufacturing components but not limited to this partial listing are compressed air, inert gases at elevated pressure or even hydraulic fluids useful, for example, for activating mechanically sliding shutters, elements which are arranged within the steelmaking vessel.
"Processing materials", as used herein, includes but is also not limited to, materials directly used in the steelmaking process such as gases, e.g. oxygen (O.sub.2), inert gases (nitrogen, argon), air, as well as powdered lime, coal dust, etc.
The relatively recently developed technology of purifying (including decarburizing, oxidizing by blowing, converting, annealing, reducing and refining of liquid metals) in tilting vessels necessitate the supply of great quantities of gas, fluids, and dust materials to the metallurgical furnace, as compared to that deemed necessary by past technology. In addition to the increase in sheer volume, the various types of processing materials must also be taken into account. The diameter of the hollow pivot pins define a relationship of the speed of the processing materials which can be delivered to the furnace at a given pressure. Using the diameter of the conduit and the speed of the material sought to be supplied, the maximum supplied quantity of the material, per time unit, can be determined by resorting to a fluid dynamics type equation.
The speed, pressure and volume of material through the pivot pin are also considerably limited by the subdivision of the cross section of the hollow pivot pin into three concentric pipe cross sections. There are, presently, no material carrying pipelines which extend beyond the existing pivot pin cross sections for feeding in processing material or manufacturing components of various kinds.
German reference P 20 65 176 shows the use of a hollow pivot of a steel manufacturing converter for compressed air lines. In addition, that reference discloses the concept of mounting a movable line guide outside yet closely adjacent to the support bearing of the pivot pins. The disadvantage of such a design, however, is that there are only a few compressed air lines made available and, therefore, a large variety of manufacturing components and processing materials may not be fully utilized nor even considered in the planning stage.